Guinness Chocolate Mousse Recipe

Chocolate lovers are fortunate in that chocolate, which is perfect enough on its own, can taste even richer and more decadent when paired with certain ingredients. One you may already know about is coffee. Another, as it turns out, is Guinness Extra Stout. With this recipe for Guinness chocolate mousse from recipe developer Jennine Bryant of The Marshside Pantry, you can try the tasty combo yourself.

"Adding the Guinness to the mousse gives an extra depth to the chocolate flavor," Bryant tells Mashed. "The flavors pair really well ... it also adds a great, Irish twist for St. Patrick's day." And something else it adds that is very important to mousse? Tiny little air bubbles in the form of carbonation. Mousse gets its "light foamy texture," as Bryant puts it, "[by] incorporating air bubbles into the mixture. This is done by either folding in whipped cream, egg whites, or both." This recipe uses both ... plus the Guinness. It also uses white chocolate in a layer of white chocolate mousse that, as you can see from the photo above, gives this clever appearance of a pint of Guinness. Ready for some airy chocolate fun? 

A ganache is a smooth, supple filling or frosting made from chocolate and cream. Its relative hardness or softness is a function of the particular recipe's ratio of chocolate to cream (or, in this case, butter, which is the solid form of cream). This particular recipe starts by creating a ganache of 4 ounces dark chocolate and 2 ounces butter by melting them together in a heatproof bowl in the microwave. The 2:1 chocolate ratio is "just right" for creating a flavor base for mousse or another whipped filling. One pro tip from Bryant is to set the temperature of your microwave to low and check the chocolate and stir the mix every 20 seconds. This will help prevent scalding.

The way this wonderfully smooth chocolate Guinness mixture transforms into mousse is via the addition of freshly whipped cream. While you're waiting for the chocolate mixture to cool to room temperature, use your chilled bowl (from the previous step) to whip up half the cream (½ cup). Use an electric beater set to high for this. Keep mixing until your whipped cream forms stiff peaks. Set this whipped cream aside in the refrigerator, covered lightly with plastic wrap.

Grab another clean, medium-sized bowl, and use an electric mixer to beat the egg white until it's foamy and stiff. Then, slowly add the 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 at a time, until the sugar is completely mixed in. The mixture shouldn't feel grainy between your fingers. If it does, keep beating the mixture until it feels smooth. Gently fold the egg white into the chocolate mixture. Grab 4 dessert glasses, and carefully divide the mixture between the 4, and place them in the fridge to chill while you make the white chocolate ganache.